. It's marvelous! But we
stay-at-homes haven't been marking time during your absence."

The puzzled frown still sat on Emma McChesney's brow. As though
thinking aloud, she said,

"Have you grown thinner, or fatter or--something?"

"Not an ounce. Weighed at the club yesterday."

He leaned forward a little, his face suddenly very sober.

"Emma, I want to tell you now that--that mother--she--I lost her just a
few weeks after you sailed."

Emma McChesney gave a little cry. She came quickly over to him, and
one hand went to his shoulder as she stood looking down at him, her
face all sympathy and contrition and sorrow.

"And you didn't write me! You didn't even tell me, last night!"

"I didn't want to distress you. I knew you were having a hard-enough
pull down there without additional worries. It happened very suddenly
while I was out on the road. I got the wire in Peoria. She died very
suddenly and quite painlessly. Her companion, Miss Tate, was with her.
She had never been herself since Dad's death."

"And you----"

"I could only do what was to be done. Then I went back on the road. I
closed up the house, and now I've leased it. Of course it's big enough
for a regiment. But we stayed on because mother was used to it. I
sold some of the furniture, but stored the things she had loved. She
left some to you."

"To me!"

"You know she used to enjoy your visits so much, partly because of the
way in which you always talked of Dad. She left you some jewelry that
she was fond of, and that colossal old mahogany buffet that you used to
rave over whenever you came up. Heaven knows what you'll do with it!
It's a white elephant. If you add another story to it, you could rent
it out as an apartment."

"Indeed I shall take it, and cherish it, and polish it up myself every
week--the beauty!"

She came back to her chair. They sat a moment in silence. Then Emma
McChesney spoke musingly.

"So that was it." Buck looked up. "I sensed something--different. I
didn't know. I couldn't explain it."

Buck passed a quick hand over his eyes, shook himself, sat up, erect
and brisk again, and plunged, with a directness that was as startling
as it was new in him, into the details of Middle Western business.

"Good!" exclaimed Emma McChesney.

"It's all very well to know that Featherlooms are safe in South
America. But the important thing is to know how they're going in the
corn country."

Buck stood up.